Buried Beneath
by StenciledWings
Summary: Funerals were supposed to be sad affairs, but no. He wasn't sad. Sequel to Under the Facade, but can be read on its own. College AU. One-shot. Implied SasuSaku.


**Hello everyone!**

This is an impromptu fic. I was watching How I Met Your Mother, then I heard the song 'The Funeral' by Band of Horses, next thing I knew, the song was playing over and over in my playlist and I've written this entire story out. :D

I think it's nice if you read this while listening to the song, but meh, totally up to you.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto or any of its characters do not belong to me. Nope.

My first impromptu fic in a while.

**Enjoy!**

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As I sat upon the leather seat of my motorcycle by the side of the road, I looked over to see her playing by the shore, the rushing waves washing her feet of seawater and sand. She bent down—picking up a seashell perhaps, before she tilted her head back, letting out a bright peal of laughter. She turned her head to look at me, and I raised a gloved hand to wave at her.

Funerals. Those were supposed to be sad affairs. After all, you had just lost someone close to you—well maybe there were some exceptions. Maybe you didn't feel sad because you hadn't really been close to the person who had died, or maybe you were just there at the funeral out of courtesy. When you were a friend of the grieving family.

Sad for them, yes.

But not necessarily sad on your own.

Sympathy might be the closest thing to it, but yeah, I assumed you already got my point. But then again, some people were probably not sad because they were too numb to feel that emotion anymore.

As for me, I wasn't sad.

Some people would think it weird if they found out, but yeah, I wasn't sad. Why was that? I absently toyed with the chain around my neck, the dog tags clinking together against my chest in the wind.

Hn.

If you thought about it, I had every reason in the world to be sad right now. My older brother, Itachi, had lost his battle against tuberculosis a few days ago, leaving me an orphan, the last member of our family. I was alone, and so I was supposed to be sad, right?

But I wasn't.

I was twenty-two, a college student with barely a year left before my graduation, and I had already lost everyone in my family. There was no one to stand with me in family photos, no one to invite me to the wedding of my brother, no celebrations to organize for the birthdays of my nephews or nieces—no possibility of having nephews or nieces at all.

I was supposed to be sad.

But I wasn't.

From the moment when I had accepted the truth—when my brother had finally told me to my face that he was going to die, and then when I had made arrangements for his funeral, had received condolences from everyone, to the moment when we had lowered his coffin six feet below the earth earlier today, I had felt no sadness.

None at all.

I wasn't an estranged brother to Itachi. In fact, we had been really close. I wasn't numb also. I wasn't indifferent—on the contrary, I was hurt. But the thing was: I just wasn't sad.

And I knew why.

During the last years of my brother's life, we had talked. We had talked, and that had made me understand—Itachi had helped me understand. With his dying breath, my brother had fulfilled his final duty as a brother to me; he had taught me my final lesson from him, and had told me what I should know.

So now, I understood.

"Sasuke-kun."

She stood in front of me, her white dress damp, her beautiful face smiling. She held out her hand, her palm open, showing me the seashell she had gotten. I looked into her green eyes.

She was hesitant, but hopeful. I pulled her flush against me, smirking when I heard her yelp. I inhaled her scent, the salty air mingled with her perfume.

Our lips met, and I kissed her briefly, passionately.

It was a kiss full of promise.

"Finally got your fill, or do I have to leave you here because you've decided to be a mermaid now?" I teased her lightly.

"Sasuke-kun, stop that!" Blushing, she half-heartedly shoved me as I chuckled. I took my black, leather jacket and wrapped it around her. She shrugged it on. It suited her, I noted smugly.

"Ready to go, princess?"

She nodded, and proceeded to climb behind me. I gave her my helmet and started up the engine. Once I made sure everything was as it should be, we began to ride down the road.

I wasn't sad.

Why?

Because Itachi had taught me that a funeral was not a sad occasion. It marked an end, yes. But funerals do not only signify the end of a person's life, but also the end of things. But why was it not a sad event? Well, that's because it also marked a new beginning.

My brother had died, had left me. But he had told me that at his death, my life wouldn't end, too. I still had a chance to start over again.

A chance to have my own family.

A chance to live again.

Itachi had taught me that every day of our lives was like a funeral. Because at the end of each day, we buried things. We remembered those which were gone from us. But we acquired or learned new ones.

We buried our hate, our love, our sympathy, and our sorrows.

We buried friends, family, and enemies.

But when we finally buried all those, we could not—should not—deny that they had once been there.

That they had once been with us.

We had once learned from those things—from them.

And those things, they had once existed.

Every day, we buried things—some we were conscious of, others, hn, I don't think so.

The point was: do not stop living while you can. While you breathed, you could choose whether or not to cry for the things you had lost. Those were your choices. But you could never run away from your funerals.

Funerals were events where you realized what you had lost, but it also reminded you of what you could still have.

All the things you had before—things that had made you happy, sad, or angry. People you had in your life—people you had loved, had hated, had pitied. You could have all of that buried beneath, and whether you forgot them or not was up to you. But it would be best if you didn't forget.

Because not forgetting what you had lost, it made the things that were left—the things you still had, so much more special.

Me? I chose not to forget. But I also chose not to grieve. Why? Because I knew Itachi wouldn't want me to. And I knew for a fact that I still had my entire life before me.

My brother was dead, and I had buried all my weaknesses and anxieties with him. I had also buried all the anger, the thoughts, the pointless things and feelings in my life that I had before.

I did not need them anymore.

The funeral was over—for now. It was not the first funeral I saw, and I knew it wouldn't be the last. I had buried things from my past, but I would still have to bury things in the future. And from this day on, every time I had to bury something under the ground of the past, I won't forget to remember what it was that I once had, and what I still had before me.

The end always brought a new beginning, just as the light of the afternoon sun upon my face now will die out and be replaced by the same sun tomorrow.

I felt Sakura hug me tighter, and briefly I looked down, seeing the glint of my mother's ring on her left ring finger. My lips formed a small smile before I looked on the road in front of me again.

Yes.

I wasn't sad.

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**How did it go?**

**OMG, reviews please. I'd love to hear your comments. :D**

**I just published a prequel for this entitled 'Under the Facade.'**

**For my other stories and/or updates, head over to my profile, or follow me on Tumblr (link's on my profile)**

**Thanks for reading! See ya!**


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